


Songbird

by nightrunning



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-01 23:29:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4038718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightrunning/pseuds/nightrunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four fingers on the Left Hand, four memories, four places in time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**9:30 Dragon**

 

‘Hey, Leliana, look at this!’

 

No matter what it was that Oghren had found and wanted to show her, Leliana was quite certain she didn’t want to see it. The Wonders of Thedas had somewhat lost its eponymous _wonder_ after entering with Zevran and Oghren in tow, and if the last three gory trinkets Oghren had seen fit to share with her were any indication, she absolutely did not want to see another.

 

‘Maker’s mercy, that… is disgusting,’ came Zevran’s voice.

 

_Zevran_ thinking something was disgusting wasn’t a good sign.

 

Their footsteps made the wooden planks beneath them groan and creak; the whole shop seemed more ancient than the city it sat in, as though Denerim had been built around it. It couldn’t be true of course, and Leliana wondered just how much magic there was coursing in the air here. She could almost smell it, mingling with the dust, hot sunlight, and dried fruits being sold outside on wooden platters.

 

A fresh series of creaks alerted her, and she turned to find Zevran. He was wearing a cat-smile and holding something in two cupped hands.

 

‘My dear, look at _this_ ,’ he crooned.

 

Leliana looked before she even had time to fight the impulse. Something small and white and notched was resting in Zevran’s hands, and she let out a sigh of relief that she couldn’t make out what it was. Oghren wandered over, a jar of viscous amber liquid under one arm (was there something… floating in it?), and craned to see what was in the elf’s grasp.

 

‘Whad’a’ya got there?’

 

‘Well, the sign says it is a fingerbone, from one of Andraste’s disciples no less,’ Zevran began, frowning a little as he held up the bone between his thumb and forefinger for the group’s consideration. ‘but I suspect it’s truly a middle finger; one gets used to their weight when you sever enough of them,’

 

Oghren laughed so loudly that Leliana was afraid he’d knock all the glass out of the arched windows.

 

‘The middle finger of some skirt-worshipping do-gooder? Ha! Make it swear at the Chantry!’

 

Leliana took the Maker’s name in vain under her breath, turning away from the two cackling fiends. She walked over the balding carpet underfoot to look over the wooden railing at the lower floor of the shop. Sibyl Cousland was talking in earnest to the Tranquil proprietor, and Leliana was reluctant to interrupt despite how much she craved some _sane_ female company.

 

So she let her mind wander. It was a hot summer day, so bright that one might forgive the people of Denerim for forgetting a Blight was alive in the heart of their country. It was impossible to believe in darkspawn whilst the sun still shone.

 

Still, Leliana didn’t want to daydream about darkspawn; they were all too real, and getting realer each day.

 

There were a pair of perfect glass slippers on display by the proprietor’s counter, and Leliana thought about those instead. A lifetime ago in Orlais, the court would have swooned to see her in them, and seethed with envy. She smiled, thinking about the neat taps they’d make on the marble floors of Val Royeaux.

 

‘Leliana,’ Oghren called out behind her, his voice turning into a low cackle. ‘you have to see this,’

 

‘I’m not sure I want to see- _Maker_ , what _is_ that?’

 

Oghren was holding something by… a few strands of hair? It looked like a ball with a too-small nugskin stretched over it. Was it some macabre children’s toy from Ages ago? Oghren was laughing, giving the thing a shake so it danced horribly, suspended in the air.

 

‘Sign says it’s a shrunken head, a _shrunken head_!’ Oghren cackled again.

 

Leliana pressed the back of a hand to her mouth. It was the size of a cooking apple, but she could make out faint remnants of warped features.

 

‘Put that down!’

 

‘Nah, I like it. Human’s sure are crazy nug lickers for comin’ up with this stuff.’

 

Zevran was nodding until Leliana caught his eye. He unfolded his arms from his chest and set them on his hips instead, smiling another razor sharp smile and inclining his head a little.

 

‘Excluding the present, divine company, of course,’ he said, and paired the words with a wink Leliana had seen a hundred times before.

 

‘Of course,’ Leliana echoed, dryly.

 

‘Careful, her giiiirlfriend will chop you in two,’ Ogrhen carolled.

 

And Leliana smiled, despite herself. Sibyl and her star-metal greatsword were truly more than capable of chopping most anything in half. Capable; but not willing – it was what Leliana loved about her.

 

‘My ears are burning, is there something I should know about?’

 

Oghren whipped round at the voice, making the shrunken head bobble and the liquid in the jar under his arm slosh about thickly. Zevran’s smile changed to something else, something fond and distant.

 

‘Warden, look at all this _stuff_!’ Oghren tottered over to Sibyl, who took one look at the miniature head and jar of tar, and looked at Leliana with a dry, void expression. It only lasted a few seconds before they both broke into private smiles.

 

‘Yes, that’s wonderful Oghren, I’m very proud. Is everyone ready? We have to meet the others back at camp and see about heading to Haven.’

 

Sibyl smiled. Tall and broad-shouldered; she was a warrior in every aspect. Her hair was tawny, short and tousled, and her deep bronze skin dusted with freckles. Dark green eyes, a strong jaw and nose; nobody would forget the Warden once they’d seen her, nor after they’d seen her fight.

 

With a gesture, she sent Oghren and Zevran down the steps to wait by the store’s door, and when Leliana went to follow she held out a hand to stop her.

 

‘I got you something,’ Sibyl said, quietly, with a downwards glance that betrayed her suddenness nervousness.

 

It was infinitely charming, so much so that Leliana had to tear her gaze away when Sibyl produced something from her backpack. She presented Leliana with a package wrapped in brown paper, tied together with thick white string in a neat bow.

 

‘I- What’s this? Oh, you didn’t need to!’ Leliana said, taking the package into her hands and smiling wryly at the weight of it. It was light despite its size, and when she gave Sibyl a quizzing look, she only received a gentle, anxious smile in return. One that plainly said _open it_.

 

A little jolt of nervousness bolted through Leliana’s hands as she tore the paper, just a little – enough to peak inside…

 

When she saw what’d been wrapped up, she almost dropped it.

 

‘Sibyl,’ Leliana started, but there weren’t any words grand enough, not even for bardic fingers to grasp. ‘this is… I don’t know what to say!’

 

Sibyl was beaming, the relief making her face bright and beautiful. She gestured again, beckoning for Leliana to follow.

 

Leliana didn’t know if she could – a daze had settled on her and turned her legs to stone and her stomach to jelly. She smiled, shook her head, and looked down at the neat package in her arms.

 

When was the last time anyone had bought her something like this?

 

Not since Marjolaine, and even then…

 

_She never gave me true gifts. Only weapons._

 

‘Come on, songbird, we’ve a lot to do,’

 

Leliana looked up. Sibyl was holding out a hand.

 

*  *  *

 

‘You know I can’t wear these.’

 

‘You’re wearing them right now,’ Sibyl laughed. The firelight loved her skin, and the shadows of flames lapped over her cheeks, putting sparks in her eyes and a shine on her lips, balmed with a mixture made from red berries.

 

‘But I can’t wear them into battle,’

 

‘You don’t think?’ Sibyl winked, but seeing the distress creep into Leliana’s expression, she leaned forward and smiled a little. ‘You can wear them here in camp if you like, to walk to the pond and back. I wanted you to have some lovely shoes, even if you haven’t much else.’

 

The words made Leliana’s heart swell, and when Sibyl leaned in to put a touch of a kiss to Leliana’s lips, she closed her eyes and bumped their noses together. She wondered then; did she truly have so little? The answer was a singing bird in her heart, flapping its wings each time they got close like this.

 

Sibyl put an arm around Leliana’s shoulders, and Leliana rested into her, looking at the stars.

 

Camp was quiet tonight; everyone had something to do. Whether it was shining armour, fletching arrows, sharpening swords, or simply bathing – there was a buzz of chatter and a patter of footsteps over the marshy grass. The smell of dew and rainwater lingered, but was slowly being burned away by wood smoke and meat. Leliana could hear Wynne and Alistair talking by the fire; she could hear Sten reciting a prayer of the Qun under his breath as he cleaned his sword with a damp rag. They were all sat about the wide campfire, all aside from Morrigan – her own fire was a star no less distant than the ones Leliana looked at up in the sky.

 

‘Is everything alright?’ Sibyl asked, and put a kiss where the skin was soft behind Leliana’s ear.

 

‘I must seem distracted,’ Leliana laughed, taking Sibyl’s hand into her own. The Warden squeezed it. ‘but everything we’re doing to stop the Blight, do you ever think about how important it is? What we do here might be retold in legends one day.’

 

‘Perhaps they’ll inspire someone like you to retell them someday, and maybe she’ll meet someone she can have her own adventures with, too,’

 

Leliana closed her eyes. Sibyl, for saying she could take the head off a Hurlock with a sweep of her star-sword, could be as sweet as a kitten when she wanted to. The night air was crisp and cold. Leliana took a deep breath, and sighed it back out with a smile.

 

Camping in the mud and long grass, in tents patched up with… whatever they could find.

 

It was a world away from Orlais. Leliana wondered if that was why she was so happy.

 

‘So, which star is the one separated by her lover? Is it up there?’

 

Leliana laughed and squeezed Sibyl’s hand before using it, along with hers, to point upwards towards the heavens. She knew the stars by heart, but it was still strange to see them through something other than a window.

 

‘Did they not teach you your stories in that fancy castle?’ Leliana teased, and though Sibyl smiled and shook her head, Leliana knew she’d touched some secret aching spot that Sibyl kept guarded.

 

‘I was never good at my lessons. I preferred the yard.’

 

The Warden had trouble with her words and letters; she said they jumbled up on the page when she tried to read them. But it was alright; Leliana knew enough tales for the both of them, and then some.

 

‘Perhaps they will put us in the stars too, someday.’ Sibyl said.

 

She was looking skywards with the fire’s glow on her face, but it only made the shadows under her eyes seem all the darker. Leliana didn’t know what to say, so she watched – and saw her Warden falter. Leliana wondered what Sibyl was seeing, whether the pinpricks of light had turned into a hundred hundred milky eyes of the Blighted hoard, or were the out-of-reach souls of all the lives the pestilence had claimed. When Leliana looked back to Sibyl, her eyes were wide. She looked younger somehow; afraid.

 

And then it was gone as quickly as it’d come. Leliana felt Sibyl shudder, and her expression changed to grim determination. She grit her teeth and inhaled the smell of wood smoke and meat. She squeezed Leliana’s hand, and Leliana covered it with her other.

 

‘It won’t be night-time for long,’ Leliana said, leaning in to put a kiss on Sibyl’s cheek.

 

‘Won’t it? What if we-’

 

‘Shh, let’s dream until it becomes real.’

 

She lingered there a moment, letting her breath warm Sibyl’s skin, her lips ghost over her cheek…

 

When Sibyl turned, when she cupped Leliana’s face with a gentle hand and guided her into a kiss, Leliana couldn’t help but smile. Sibyl always kissed gently, reservedly; it was half the fun trying to coax her out of herself. But Leliana loved her gentility. Unlacing her hands from Sibyl’s, she put her arms about the warrior’s shoulder and leaned in close. Mingled breath, soft lips and the occasional bump of noses. Each time Sibyl made to pull away, Leliana whispered that it was _alright,_ and guided her back to her.

 

For more. For everything.

 

_Let me heal her with her own softness._

 

Sibyl shivered when Leliana deepened the kiss. Just a little.

 

And all too quickly it ended, as Sibyl jerked backwards when Oghren came tearing across the camp, tripping over the pots and pans arranged around the fire – but somehow managing to keep upright.

 

‘Maker’s mercy,’ Sibyl sighed, watching the dwarf lollop around the tents.

 

Her mabari was chasing him, and Leliana tried to hide her smile as she watched it all. Sibyl looked positively dumbfounded – but not surprised in the least. It seemed that Rabbit wanted the honeyed adulter’s foot that Oghren, for reasons unknown, had taken out of the jar of viscous embalming fluid.

 

Oghren’s cackles echoed into the night, across the flat field. From over by her tent, even Morrigan glanced at the antics.

 

‘Remind me why you bought him that horrible thing again?’ Leliana asked.

 

She smiled when Sibyl brushed the back of her fingers across her cheek.

 

‘We’ve got to take care of all our crazy kids, haven’t we?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! this is my first attempt at something longer for this pairing, so gosh any feedback about how it's going would be super appreciated!


	2. Chapter 2

**9:37 Dragon**

 

The wooden shutters across the windows were rattling like bones. The wind outside made the chimes above the tavern door dance and clang; it made all the patrons shift on the edge of their seats, gripping their flagons a little harder than usual; bone pressing white to skin.

 

Leliana saw it. She _heard_ it. A creaking chair where someone was adjusting their weight too often, the forced quality to the laughter that occasionally rose over the hubbub of dour conversation.

 

People were scared, and it wasn’t just because of the storm brewing in the dark, ashen clouds.

 

Something was stirring in Kirkwall, and Leliana hadn’t needed to go there herself to know that it was something _big_. She kept herself to the shadows in the tavern, beside a grubby window where she’d wiped a stripe clean. She wanted to see outside where the stony road ran through the forest. Leliana would be back travelling upon it soon – on her way to Val Royeaux – but not yet. There was an appointment she had to keep.

 

Sibyl came back from the bar with two tall glasses of water and set them on the table, taking the seat opposite Leliana.

 

The Blight had changed her even long after it’d ended; it’d changed them both. Sibyl’s hair was streaked with silver, and there was a tautness to the skin around her eyes and mouth that simply hadn’t been there seven years ago. And the way she walked with her sword upon her back… it was as though the weight of the great star-metal blade was beginning to catch up with her.

 

Leliana wondered how much she herself had changed in the eyes of her lover, too.

 

But it didn’t matter. They smiled as they joined hands across the table. Sibyl bowed her head, exhaling her thanks to the Maker that they were both still alive, and Leliana brushed her thumbs over Sibyl’s rough skin. Nothing mattered that wasn’t their joined hands, but Leliana still felt the wariness in the air, tugging at her.

 

‘I was worried for a few moments there,’ Sibyl jested, letting go of Leliana’s hands to take a hearty gulp of water. There was mud and grit on her hands, and a smudge across her chin. ‘I think you got out of Kirkwall just in time.’

 

‘It isn’t fair that so many preposterous rumours have spread about the mages there, it’s all nonsense! At least everyone can sense the danger now.’

 

Sibyl shook her head.

 

‘True, but it doesn’t mean people will do any more than they did during the blight. They’ll hope and pray that it passes them by, but it’s not so simple this time. There’s not an archdemon controlling the mages. Nor the Templars for that matter. It’s not so simple at all.’

 

_Simple?_ Leliana had to smile; it was a warrior’s stance. She traced the rim of her glass with a fingertip, and it sang quietly under her touch. She’d been worried it’d be hard to open herself up to Sibyl again, after years of here-and-there reunions. But it never was. It was always like sinking into a hot bath, the warm reaching her fingers, her mind…

 

Some things were bigger than the two of them, however. Some things demanded more of them than they could of each other.

 

‘We must seek a peaceful solution in Kirkwall. The situation there… is dire.’

 

‘That isn’t surprising, but still – it’s not good news.’

 

A few heads twitched at the mention of the Free Marcher city-state. Leliana and Sibyl shared a glance; they were just outside of Wycome, but it was close enough to Kirkwall for the tension to have spread.

 

Sibyl sat back in the chair that groaned under the weight of her armour. It hadn’t been shined in a while, and the number of fresh dents and gashes did little to soothe the prickling at the back of Leliana’s mind.

 

‘I’m not sure a peaceful solution can be achieved, not one that’ll last,’ Sibyl sighed.

 

Leliana wrinkled her nose, taken aback.

 

‘The Divine disagrees,’ she said lowly, pushing down the hood of her threadbare cloak. She wore riding leathers and tall, fur-lined boots for the journey, and was thankful that the tavern’s occupants had larger concerns than her mish-mash of armour. ‘She believes the Chantry can undo what it has caused in Kirkwall.’

 

‘Has she not also asked you to inquire whether an Exalted March would be necessary? Is that a peaceful solution?’

 

‘How do you know about that?’

 

‘I was told.’

 

Stony-faced, Sibyl said nothing else. Leliana blinked, feeling a shiver of frustration run through her like a poison. Was this how it was going to be now? Secrets, schemes? Keeping things from one another?

 

_Secrets are who you are, Leliana._

 

She shook the thought loose.

 

‘The Divine must consider all possible outcomes; her intervention would be felt across the continent. She sent me to make a decision. The right one.’

 

‘And you spared Kirkwall an exaltation.’

 

‘I did. I believe in Hawke.’

 

Sibyl tilted her head, but conjured a weary smile to banish the scepticism from her eyes. Leliana was glad. She didn’t think she could afford to go back on that choice now. Whatever Kirkwall’s fate was; it was going to be entirely of its own making.

 

‘So, you’ll be back in Orlais before long?’ Sibyl asked, far more cheerily.

 

She drained her glass of water, and set it back on the table with a neat _tap_.

 

‘Indeed, the Divine has plans to lay.’

 

‘We must write one another more often when we depart again, I’ve missed you for too long, songbird,’ Sibyl took one of Leliana’s hands in her own, dirtied and hard, and brought it to her lips, for only a moment to lay a soft kiss upon her knuckles. Her kisses were soft. They were always soft.

 

But something in her words had struck Leliana as odd.

 

‘Again? You… Will you not ride with me to Val Royeaux?’

 

She saw the answer on Sibyl’s face before she heard it from her lips. A disconsolate sadness glimmered in her moss-green eyes, she swallowed nervously, and looked at the initials that’d be carved into the wooden table with a restless blade.

 

‘I’m for Weisshaupt. The Wardens are convening to discuss leadership and… news, from the south.’

 

_Secrets again_.

 

Leliana pushed her glass of water away from her. She cast a quick glance about the tavern, but the patrons were well into their cups despite the evening only being a dusky pink prologue dusting the skyline. By nightfall, the tavern would be raucous – and she’d be gone.

 

And so would Sibyl, but in a different direction.

 

It hurt, like a hand squeezing her heart too tight, like a boot pressed to her throat. Leliana could not breathe for a moment. Years they’d waited, and for years they’d stolen days away like this – to meet and promise to be together again soon. The promises piled up as high as the years did.

 

But it wasn’t Sibyl’s fault.

 

_Not my honey warrior,_ Leliana thought to herself, willing her chest to open, to breathe. She took Sibyl’s hand, but couldn’t look her in the eye.

 

She wanted to say she’d drop the whole world, let it roll into a dusty corner, if it meant they could be together like they used to.

 

Blight or no Blight.

 

‘Songbird, Leliana, what is it, love?’

 

‘Let’s go for a walk,’

 

 

*

 

 

Sibyl had stayed in the tavern to pay the barkeep for the heel of bread and three glasses of water they’d gotten through, but Leliana couldn’t stand to be amongst the patrons and the ripe stench of ale any longer. She snuck up the stairs to the room she’d rented for the previous night, claiming she was going to fetch her bow, and closed the door shut behind her, resting her palms on the old painted wood.

 

A muffled quiet fell, but it only made the pressure that much more acute. It felt as though the weight of the world was upon her shoulders. She had to placate Dorothea, she had to placate Kirkwall – she couldn’t now put herself in a situation where she’d have to placate Sibyl, too.

 

Was it to much to have expected Sibyl to want to come with her to Val Royeaux? Leliana’s head cried yes even as her heart cried no.

 

Leliana heaved herself away from the door and fell onto the lumpy bed where she’d tried to sleep last night. She raked back her hair from her brow, and then covered her eyes with a hand, trying to blot out the light from the window. And she thought of Sibyl, of how it was a Grey Warden’s job to self-sacrifice, of how she couldn’t expect Sibyl to do any less than her duty. It was in her blood and bone.

 

Downstairs, Leliana could hear the tavern talking. The voices blended into one, one chorus of buzzing, nattering song, punctuated with clanking flagons and the occasional ripple of anxious laughter. It wasn’t where Leliana wanted to be; she squeezed her eyes shut tighter and thought of the cloister, she thought of the camps they used to make around Ferelden.

 

But that had been a long time ago.

 

Leliana sat up, slowly, and leaned forward. There were stains on the wooden floor, and dust dancing in slow spirals in front of the window, like powdered memories.

 

_We’ll never be together like we were._

 

They were being pulled down two separate paths, after all, but Leliana kennelled the thought. _Keep busy_ , she told herself, reciting an old mantra, _and time will fly_. She wiped under her eyes, and reached beneath the bed for the small stack of papers that’d been delivered to her by raven in the dead of night. Leliana undid the string that bound them, and flicked through the parchments until she found the one she needed.

 

A missive from Kirkwall; things were reaching boiling point, according to an old friend. Leliana tapped her thumb against the page, her head was too bleary to truly engage with the missive, but her mission there was a constant presence in her head, tickling the edges of her mind uncomfortably.

 

Something was going to happen, and that something was centred around Hawke. It was stirring in the bones of the earth – but even Leliana could not hear that deep. Was she to wait and see? Was that better than persuading the Divine to send an Exalted March against the city? It was an impossible situation, and the knots only grew tighter the more Leliana thought about them.

 

A knock on the door startled Leliana out of her brooding. She had no time to push the papers under the bed again before Sibyl entered.

 

‘We’re all paid up, I covered your room for y-’

 

Sibyl stopped, closed the door; and for the first time in a long time, Leliana saw a flash of fear cross her face, catching in the age lines around her eyes and mouth.

 

‘Songbird, what is it?’

 

_Don’t cry._

 

It was hard to look at her, to hear the softness is her voice from half the room away. Leliana tied the string around her papers, slowly, and pulled it tight. Then she shook her head.

 

‘Will you always be so far from me?’

 

‘Leliana,’

 

The bed creaked when Sibyl sat on it beside Leliana, and Leliana melted into the hug the Warden pulled her into, resting her head upon her chest.

 

And there was that familiar smell; lavender soap mingled with leather, mud, and something outdoorsy that Leliana could never put her finger on. It’d made her happy once, to cuddle this closely and inhale everything that made the Warden _hers_. In becoming ephemeral, the joy had turned bittersweet, also.

 

‘What were you reading? Reports?’ Sibyl whispered, putting a kiss upon Leliana’s crown.

 

‘News from Kirkwall,’

 

‘Bad news?’

 

‘I don’t know what’s going to happen. I couldn’t possibly say.’ Leliana began, but something else was burning to be said, burning in her throat like a cough held in for too long. She pulled away, keeping a hand laced up with Sibyl’s, and said her name.

 

‘Songbird,’

 

Sibyl’s lips tasted of fresh spring water, of fruit and salt. The kiss didn’t last long, but it didn’t need to. Leliana chanced a small smile when they bumped their noses together affectionately – but then she had to pull away again, and draw up her courage.

 

Which was hard, seeing as Sibyl was looking at her with such raw worry behind her eyes.

 

‘I’m… I should have told you this long ago, we promised not to have secrets, didn’t we?’ Leliana paused to take a breath. ‘But I’m terrified you’re going to ride to Weisshaupt and not come back. That we’ll be apart, always.’

 

The words made bitter shapes of Leliana’s mouth, how long had she kept them locked away and festering? She chanced to look at Sibyl sat on the edge of the bed, and saw a stunned silence masking her Warden’s face. Leliana’s heart stopped, and did not start again until Sibyl sighed away her surprise, a sad smile on her lips.

 

She pulled Leliana close again, and held her very tightly.

 

‘I won’t.’ she whispered. ‘I’ll come back, and when I do, nothing will be able to part us again.’

 

‘You’ve been reading your romances,’ Leliana said, with a ghost of laughter colouring her voice.

 

‘I’ve just been remembering the ones you told me about,’

 

‘Do you mean it?’

 

‘Of course. We’ll both be busy for a time, but another time will come when we have a chance to live together again. It’ll come, just you wait.’

 

Leliana tucked into Sibyl’s chest, feeling her chin rested atop her red head. Her words had smoothed down the most ardent bristles in Leliana’s mind, but some small worries snaked around the relief. More waiting? More wondering? Had she expected too much, again?

 

_But she said she’d come back._

 

And Sibyl had never told a lie in all her years, not a one.

 

Leliana closed her eyes, and wrapped her arms around Sibyl’s middle.

 

‘We should go for that walk now,’ she said, and it was Sibyl’s turn to laugh softly.

 

 

*  *  *

 

 

A brave and blustery wind was bending the trees to and fro, and making ripples through the long grass; dewy, damp and untrodden by boot or hoof. The conditions weren’t perfect for a walk; but neither Leliana nor Sibyl had been scared of a little wind before.

 

Leliana relished the looks of disdain they got from the patrons in the tavern, gaping over their beer and ale at the two women going hand in hand out into the woods. It made her feel young again, younger than she’d felt in a long time. Perhaps the wind had blown her worries away too, for a time.

 

It certainly blew _her_ about. Leliana and Sibyl wandered up the path that led from the stables into the forest, weaving through the thin trees when it came to an end. A grey, gritty sky rolled overhead, but the light peeping through was pure white. When the wind exhaled a gust – Leliana ran with it, laughing like a child in the Denerim market. They were pushed far beyond the tavern, yet not so far that they couldn’t see the plume of smoke from the brick chimney. Sibyl was smiling when Leliana turned to look at her – and it was that smile Leliana had loved before ought else. It was private, precious, and totally coy.

 

‘We’re going to get lost!’ Sibyl called over the breeze, beaming.

 

Leliana fell back and joined their hands together, shaking her head.

 

It wouldn’t do to think that way. It wouldn’t do to think about any of the fanged thoughts baying at the back of her head. Leliana let her eyes close for a minute; she let the wind push them back again. And again and again if need be. This wasn’t their moment. _It’s ours._

 

She smiled back at Sibyl, reassuring her they wouldn’t get lost so long as it was light, and led her by hand to a circle of trees atop a soft hill.

 

There was a natural opening, but the circle of thin silver birches was too perfect to have happened naturally. Did elves live in these woods once? Or perhaps humans who believed in things other than the Chantry? Leliana missed uncovering the small mysteries to be found in these no-mans-lands.

 

‘Did you know this was here?’ Sibyl asked, not quite able to disguise the wariness in her voice.

 

‘No, but it’s pretty, isn’t it?’

 

She led the Warden inside, and gasped happily when she saw the floor of the circle was crowded with little white daisies springing up between the grasses. Even the wind shied away, blowing outside and making a sanctuary of the circular copse of silver birches. Leliana could feel the Maker’s hand, his will – he always led her to remarkable places, remarkable in the smallest, most grand sense.

 

‘Maker, I’m glad we found this place. I was afraid you’d been blown back to Orlais without even saying goodbye.’ Sibyl said, considerably cheerier when she’d seen no genlocks lurked within the shadows.

 

She sat down opposite Leliana, crossing her legs and watched her pick daises from the ground. Leliana felt her eyes, and looked up to flash her a smile.

 

Would she have felt safe here with anyone else?

 

‘Have you had word from any of our old band?’ Leliana asked. She herself had received correspondence from Wynne, but that had been years ago, and nothing since.

 

‘Oghren’s still on the surface, mowing his way through his share of darkspawn, I’m sure. I’m not sure _where_ Zevran went, but I’m guessing he went home at some point, if the breeds of birds I get from him are any indication. Sten’ll be back home too by now, I got a missive from him some months ago – but it was as brief as you might expect. Morrigan… well, Morrigan’ll be somewhere. But she told me not to follow. Again.’

 

‘And Alistair?’

 

Sibyl paused. She looked down at the daisies and seemed to sigh as she tapped one’s sunny face with a finger. It sprung back at her touch.

 

‘He’s with the Wardens in Orlais, attempting to rebuild. But we don’t speak. He doesn’t want to.’

 

‘Even after everything that’s happened? What a stubborn man.’

 

‘It’s his right to be stubborn, I suppose. It just means I have fewer eyes in Orlais, is all, and potentially someone working to undermine my authority. Some of the Wardens are as wary of me as he now is – I see it all the time. Perhaps he’d rather one of us _had_ died.’

 

Leliana stopped threading the daisies together to give Sibyl a stern look. She looked odd, sitting in the middle of the trees, in the grass and flowers; but it wasn’t entirely unflattering. There’d always been a softness to Sibyl, and not just her tummy. She suited these calm moments when there was nothing to do but _breathe_.

 

‘It’s long past the time you made that choice; he should come to respect it by now.’

 

‘What was it you were saying about him being stubborn?’ Sibyl smirked.

 

Leliana didn’t want to talk further about Alistair. The barbs they’d shared not long after Anora’s coronation still stuck in her mind, though they’d been aimed at Sibyl. Less than a year after the Blight was defeated, he left for Orlais and didn’t look back, not once, not even to ask for directions.

 

‘Here, I made you something sweeter,’

 

Leliana threaded the first and last daises of the chain together to make a make-shift crown of flowers. She’d read they did this in Rivain at the Allsmeet, and had daydreamed about Sibyl wearing such a thing ever since.

 

When she handed it over, however, Sibyl looked at it like she was being handed some moth-eaten trousers.

 

‘Daisies,’ she said, helpfully.

 

‘You wear them like a crown,’

 

‘Oh, I see,’ Sibyl said with a little laugh, gently taking the chain of flowers and holding it in her two hands. She looked at Leliana, and smiled as warmly as she ever did. ‘My songbird, always doing more for me than I do for you,’

 

‘Don’t be silly, Sibyl,’

 

‘Shall I put it on?’ Sibyl asked, and smiled again when Leliana nodded enthusiastically.

 

Sibyl lifted the crown over her head, and set it atop her tawny hair. The daises settled into place after a little adjusting, and Leliana sat back with a beaming smile seeing her warrior look so fine and fair. The crown of white flowers with sunshine middles suited her features; her too-big broken nose and jaw to match, the peppering of freckles across her cheeks and brow. It softened the scars Sibyl had collected, too, and she’d collected enough to make Leliana’s heart skip a beat sometimes.

 

When Leliana looked back into Sibyl’s eyes, she expected her to be smiling too – but something was clouding the Warden’s expression, even as she tried her best to grin.

 

‘What is it, love?’ Leliana asked.

 

Sibyl reached to take Leliana’s hands in both of hers, rubbing her thumbs over her skin and squeezing softly.

 

Then, she looked into Leliana’s eyes.

 

And Leliana knew if she ever looked away, it’d be too soon.

 

‘Things are changing. Times are changing, so are people,’ she began, even as Leliana thought to herself _not us._ The two of them would always belong to the Blight somehow, it’d always be the black band around their ankles, never letting them stray too far. ‘Remember me, Songbird, remember I’m never too far away. Even if I am.’

 

Sibyl shook her head when she’d finished, in a muddle, flustered. Leliana had never seen anything so charming and cute. She couldn’t help but smile as the honeyed words began to spread inside her.

 

_Remember me._

 

There was no answer for that, not when each of Leliana’s heartbeats was a prayer for the two of them.

 

‘Come here, you,’ Leliana cooed, and took Sibyl into her arms with a smile.

 

Amongst the daises and the tall grass, they sat for a long time. Leliana kept her eyes closed and her chin atop Sibyl’s head, and Sibyl placed the flat of her hand over Leliana’s heart. It was _their_ moment, and all the barking thoughts stayed far from Leliana’s mind. There was only the two of them, the wind outside and the light perfume of the daisies.

 

_Remember me._

 

‘I always will,’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading :-) two more chapters to go! i'd love to hear what you think so far, and whether i'm doing this femslash justice! hopefully there'll be more in the future...


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three, 9:42 Dragon**

 

Though Morrigan had changed beyond recognition in some regards – there were some things that would never change, despite how many years peeled away from her.

 

Like snooping.

 

She’d always be a snoop.

 

_And I’ll always catch her_ , Leliana thought to herself with a smug surge as she waited, unseen, on the stairs leading up to Skyhold’s rookery.

 

Her crows were cawing in their cages, and Leliana wondered how it was that Morrigan hadn’t suspected that Leliana would know what each of their caws and calls meant. The crows knew who should be up in the loft and who shouldn’t. And they certainly knew how to raise an alarm when a witch was poking about in desks and drawers that they ought not to be.

 

Leliana waited until Morrigan had flipped the lid of a small wooden box before climbing up the last few stairs and clearing her throat.

 

‘Morrigan,’

 

The witch of the wilds turned, with a smile that might have been guilty if it belonged to anyone else. As it was, Morrigan looked as sly as a fox.

 

Fatigue lurked in the delicate lines around her eyes, and the teeth she bore weren’t so sharp. Still, she folded her arms and stood upright, matching Leliana’s ardent stare with one of her own, inclining her chin – a challenge Leliana knew well.

 

‘What are you doing? Is there any need for you to be up here?’ Leliana asked curtly.

 

‘Reason doesn’t come into it. I am simply exploring my new home.’

 

‘ _This_ isn’t your home, Morrigan. Do not rifle through my things again.’

 

Morrigan made a faux-surprised face, but backed away from the box when Leliana approached.

 

‘Oh, do I sense an _or else_ coming? You _have_ changed, Leliana.’

 

‘Did you know me so well?’

 

‘Well enough to sense it in you, the change.’

 

Leliana bristled. Evening was setting in around Skyhold, the sky melted from pinks and oranges to a plum purple, pricked with the first pale light of the early stars. The snow atop the Frostbacks caught the unlight, and from them came a brisk and stiff cool wind that ruffled the crow’s feathers.

 

Morrigan didn’t take her eyes off Leliana, she stood with a hand on her hip, looking idly round the attic. From her expression, she didn’t seem impressed.

 

And Leliana hated that that rankled her.

 

She shouldn’t _want_ Morrigan to be awed of how far she’d come, of the unspeakable things she’d done for the continuation of the Chantry’s peace. But there was that look in Morrigan’s eyes that had been there since Lothering – _I’ll always be a young pious girl fresh out the cloister, no matter who I was before or since._

 

Leliana was wondering about the best way to tell Morrigan she ought not to come up to the rookery alone when the witch heaved a sigh. Her shoulder slumped, and some of her pomp faded. Suddenly, she looked all her ten years older.

 

‘Do not be overly alarmed. I came to speak to you, in fact.’

 

‘To me?’

 

‘Is that such a surprise? You and I went through much the same thing, all those years ago.’

 

That wasn’t strictly true, but Leliana didn’t argue the point. Something odd was happening, something that was making her scouts watch out of the corners of their eyes. She swallowed her pride, all the bitterness of it, and sat in her worn chair, turning it round from the desk to face Morrigan, who’d perched on one of the large crates.

 

‘Am I supposed to believe you came here, to me, for a heart-to-heart?’ Leliana asked, sceptically.

 

‘Believe what you wish. But I did come to talk.’

 

‘Why?’

 

Morrigan stared, and Leliana stared back, wrinkling her nose. It didn’t make sense. Not once in all the months of the Blight had Morrigan wanted to _talk_ , and Leliana couldn’t fathom what would be different now…

 

_She has a child, and it has been over a decade._

 

When Leliana drew herself out of her thoughts, she saw Morrigan looking around the attic again, with eyes as wild and yellow as a harvest moon.

 

‘How is it, I wonder, that everything feels so similar – and yet, not at all.’ she pondered aloud.

 

Leliana held her breath; she’d thought much the same when they’d first arrived in Skyhold, when it’d first hit her; it was happening again. An unlikely hero gathering a band of even more unlikely allies, and battling the most unimaginable horrors the world had to offer? Yes, it was familiar. Achingly so. Leliana knew it was why she kept her distance; it was why she’d declined when the young Inquisitor had asked her to come along with him.

 

‘Do you still think of those days? During the Blight?’ Leliana asked, quietly. To her surprise, Morrigan smiled.

 

‘I have a lasting reminder.’

 

‘Kieran, of course.’

 

‘But to answer your question; I do. ‘Tis pointless to linger in those memories overlong, but from time to time I find myself… reminiscing, if that is the right word.’

 

Leliana allowed herself a small breath of laughter.

 

‘I know what you mean, it’s strange to think of the tents and fields and the mud, and miss it. But so much has changed. They were simpler times.’

 

‘Only because we did not know better. Ignorance is bliss, or so they say.’

 

Leliana blinked, adjusted her weight in the chair, curled her fingers around the armrests. Once, Morrigan would have chided her for her naivety, but the hard edges had smoothed from her – like how the tide reduces rocks to pebbles. The scouts in the loft stepped softly around the balcony, going to and fro with rooks on their arms. Leliana watched them idly, just as Morrigan watched _her_.

 

She was older, but age favoured Morrigan, it would seem. Her hair was dark and thick as ever, and the fine lines blossoming on her face only dignified the sharpness of her features even further. The biggest change was behind her eyes, where there was no longer a wolf lurking, looking back.

 

_Older and wiser._

 

‘Have you had word from the Warden?’ Morrigan asked.

 

_The Warden_. It made Leliana smile, they all called Sibyl that as though she didn’t have a name beyond her title. In way, Leliana was glad – she could still recall the smiles Sibyl gave her when Leliana whispered her forename into her ear.

 

‘No. She has her own quest, and cannot be distracted from it.’

 

‘Oh? Would a simple letter from you inquiring as to her well-being be such a distraction?’

 

Leliana grimaced.

 

 

‘She cannot help us, not from her current location. The Inquisition-’

 

‘Where is she?’

 

‘I cannot say,’

 

Morrigan paused a moment, letting the answer settle, mulling over it with amused disinterest. Leliana said nothing as she watched, but couldn’t deny the relief that inflated her lungs when Morrigan nodded.

 

‘I understand.’

 

‘You should know,’ Leliana began, and even as she did so she wondered _why_ she was about to do what she was going to do. ‘that Sibyl was searching for a way to reverse the Joining.’

 

‘Ah, most interesting.’

 

‘Can it be done?’

 

‘You ask if I know a way?’ Morrigan said, raising a thin, dark brow. ‘I do not. Though I have no doubt as to why you would ask such a thing.’

 

Leliana didn’t know if she wholly believed Morrigan, but it wouldn’t do to force the issue. She crossed her legs and settled back into the chair. Outside, the soldiers were going through their last drills for the night, and a steady stream of patrons was headed to the tavern.

 

Golden ale, firelight, and the songs of a good bard.

 

Leliana was almost jealous.

 

‘Tell me then, are you still devoted to one another? Nothing has… faded in the wake of a decade?’

 

Leliana looked up, and saw Morrigan regarding her with a curious look in her eye; hunger, curiosity, and something else that Leliana couldn’t place.

 

It was an odd question, one that made Leliana shiver. For how was she to know the depth of Sibyl’s devotion? How could she know such a thing when they were so far apart? Sibyl didn’t write as often as she used to, and as much as Leliana believed that it was due to her journeys into uncharted lands, she wondered if it might not also be an answer in itself…

 

Morrigan didn’t need to know all those things, however. Leliana shrugged, she looked away, and did not answer. She had the right to keep some things private – and Morrigan would have no more luck prying them from her mind as she would prying into little wooden boxes.

 

Silence fell over the tower, only interrupted by the constant chorus of crow-song; chattering and singing. Morrigan looked at her hands and wove her fingers together; she’d crossed her legs, and tapped one foot on the ground a little restlessly.

 

When she stirred, Leliana watched, waiting.

 

Morrigan exhaled, then smiled – ever so briefly.

 

‘She will succeed.’

 

The quiet shattered with those three words, and Leliana could not have stopped her smile even if she’d wanted to. A vote of confidence from Morrigan was worth three from anyone else, after all.

 

‘I know,’ Leliana said.

 

And the moment was solidified between them.

 

But only for a moment – steps echoed up the rotunda, neat and light but desperately hasty whilst trying to not to be. Leliana smiled again; she’d know those steps anywhere. _Josie_.

 

Sure enough, Josie came dashing up to the loft, holding her dress an inch above her delicate tapered shoes so she didn’t trip. Her eyes met Leliana’s, and they were full of frenzy, light and sparkling. Leliana didn’t even have the time to introduce her properly to Morrigan, or to ask what noble had gotten too close to the dracolisks this time, before Josie started talking.

 

‘Leliana, thank the Maker!’ Josie huffed, pulling herself up the last three steps as though she’d been climbing a mountain. ‘One of your birds _allegedly_ pecked at Dorian, and he’s demanding you… tell it off. I tried reasoning with the Inquisitor, but Master Lavellan says Dorian is well within his rights to request such a thing – and I cannot supersede the Inquisitor in this matter!’

 

Leliana didn’t have the heart to tell Josie that _Master Lavellan_ was being a sarcastic arse.

 

‘And this is the man you chose to lead? Hmmm.’ Morrigan said, folding her arms.

 

‘Master Lavellan and Lord Pavus are very fond of one ano-’ Josie began.

 

And then she realised she was talking to Morrigan.

 

The witch and the spymaster shared a secret smile, and if the ravens saw – they didn’t tell anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for sticking with this little fic! one more chapter to go, so hopefully you hang around :-) it's a shorter chapter today, but i had a lot of fun writing about leliana in this era, it's like the start of her own uphill journey. three guesses who that particular master lavellan is, too....
> 
> anyway holy smokes, thank you for reading! and as always, i'd love to know what you think - so feel free to leave a comment!


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four, 9:45 Dragon**

 

It was midnight in Val Royaeux, but the Chant still echoed from the Grand Cathedral, a lull of song over the quiet houses with little lights in the windows. Undying flames. Thick, black clouds blotted out the moon and the stars, and instead shed a fine, thin rain down onto Orlais’ chosen city. The pavements were dotted with puddles, and all the nobles out after dark rushed here and there with their petticoats held over their heads.

Some of them passed Leliana by, and none of them even suspected they’d just darted past Divine Victoria herself.

She wore no red garb tonight. No cowl and crown, no vestments of the Maker. Victoria wore an old riding cloak pulled over simple leather armour; tonight she was just Leliana, tonight she was herself again.

Or she soon would be.

Leliana peered out down the long road from under her hood, but there were no travellers in sight. She pushed down her impatience, and contented herself to wait, to let her excitement steel her for what lay ahead.

It’d been six months since Corypheus had been banished, and six months since Leliana took the mantle of Divine. It had felt like coming home when she’d stepped into the Grand Cathedral again, and she’d been sure to thank Justinia before she took the throne. Somehow, Leliana knew Justinia had been involved in all this. Perhaps it’d been what she intended from the start.

It was a thought that once startled, but now it only soothed.

There is a plan, there is a Maker, and I am, and have always been, an agent of his Will.

Leliana still got flowers every fortnight from the Inquisition; white lilies tied with a red bow. Lavellan’s way of saying thank you without being too overt about it. Sometimes Cassandra’s signature was on the calling card attached to the bouquet.

Hoofbeats drew Leliana out of her reverie, and she snapped her attention back to the long open road that wound into the city proper. She could not see the horse and rider for the rain and the dark. Leliana fastened her cloak tight around her, and peered as far as she could. A shape began to emerge from the gloom, atop horseback, a tall figure, broad of shoulder.

It had to be her.

The letter had said tonight.

Leliana smiled into the wind and rain as it streaked across her face, she took uncertain steps forward towards the rider, racing down the road. She saw a silver helmet, a blue cloak and armour. She saw the pommel of a star-metal greatsword protruding from the rider’s shoulder.

Sibyl…

Before she knew it, Leliana was calling the name. It burst from her throat and turned the cautious smile on her lips to a full, joyful beam. She called it again, and did not care if she splashed in the puddles as she ran. No water, no wind or rainy night was going to keep her from her Warden’s side. Not again. It was hard to breathe, it was hard to believe; there she was atop a dark horse.

Leliana saw Sibyl urge her horse to a stop. With two hands she took off her winged helm, and held it under an arm, using her other hand to shield her face from the rain.

She saw Leliana.

The helm made a dull clank onto the road, but Leliana didn’t hear it. All she heard was her own name ringing in her ears.

  
*

  
Clear, crystalline water filled up the marble bathtub. Leliana trailed her fingertips across its surface, sending shivery ripples from one edge to the other. Her hands shook and her stomach was doing somersaults, but the warm water was a balm. Knelt beside the tub, Leliana watched her shifting reflection in the water, light by candlelight. Things were changing again – she’d know the feeling anywhere, like a subtle vertigo.

‘For saying you’re the Divine, your chambers are very modest.’

‘That was Justinia’s doing. She always said a clean hearth made for a clean mind.’

‘I’m sure you won’t overburden yourself if you get a few silk cushions. You’ve earned your place here, songbird,’

Leliana smiled, and saw her reflection smile too.

Sibyl wandering into the washroom from Leliana’s adjoining bedchamber, looking around the small room with a touch of disbelief in her eye. Leliana turned to watch her, and recognised the expression; she still felt it too, at times. Sometimes she’d wake up, thinking she was still the Left Hand…

Her whole life felt like a dream at times.

‘I’m sure if I made a few well-placed suggestions, we’d have a dozen dozen cushions delivered to us by well-meaning Chantry supporters, and only half of them would be filled with bugs.’ Leliana said, smiling up at her Warden.

Sibyl’s smile was sad, but she didn’t say anything.

Leliana’s stomach twisted itself into a new knot, too tight for words to undo. She reached out to the small silver tap, and turned it off. The sound of flowing water stopped, and a fresh, warm silence filled the room like steam.

Shadows danced on the terracotta walls.

And they were plain, all of them, unburdened by mosaics, tapestries, or murals. The water and hot air would ruin them otherwise. But there were prayers carved into the wax of the candles in the sconces, and Leliana watched the words bleed into themselves. Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow. In their blood the Maker's will is written.

‘Is it all ready?’

Leliana opened her eyes, but she hadn’t even realised she’d shut them.

Sibyl stood next to her in a silken gown tied at her waste. There was a smudge of mud across her nose, a peppering of small cuts and bruises across her shoulders. Leliana gaped, scrabbling for words, for thought – all she could hear was the Chant, the Chant that never ended.

‘I… Yes! I think so.’

Tilting her head, Sibyl flashed Leliana a charming, quizzical little smile. She let her gown fall from her shoulders, to land at her feet in a soft pile. She stepped into the bath, one foot then the other, and sank into the water.

‘Ah, Maker…’

‘It’s good?’ Leliana asked.

‘It’s good.’

Leliana smiled, kneeling at the tub’s side, at Sibyl’s side. She dipped her fingers into the water once more, and found they were quickly taken up by Sibyl’s. The Warden weaved their fingers together, and beamed to see them so interlocked.

‘I’m fairly certain I’m going to wake up in a second or two.’ she said.

The water lapped around her collarbones.

‘This isn’t a dream, Sibyl,’

‘It feels very much like the dreams I’ve been having these past few years. The ones that aren’t nightmares, anyway.’

‘This one’s real, and certainly not a nightmare. It’s real.’

It was easier to say than to believe, but Leliana attributed that to their shared fatigue. In the morning, things would be brighter, if not clearer. But a heavy shadow hung over her heart, even so, like a cobweb too high to sweep away. Leliana tried to crush it, to kennel it, to push it away – but when she looked upon Sibyl’s smiling face, at the warmth in the lines around her eyes and mouth, it only made her heart ache even more.

‘What are you thinking of? Have you a busy day tomorrow with your flock?’ Sibyl asked, raising a brow.

Leliana shook her head, and shook off her stupor.

‘The flock can mind themselves tomorrow. We have years worth of time to catch up on.’

It was true. Leliana had already cancelled her duties for the morning, and reassured the Cathedral staff and Sisters that the warrior she was bringing into the heart of the Chantry was to be trusted. The Hero of Ferelden wasn’t so well known in Orlais, but the title still demanded respect. Leliana smiled, recalling the way the Sisters’ eyes had grown large when they’d heard it.

‘Songbird, I don’t want to distract you from your calling,’ Sibyl squeezed Leliana’s hand before letting it go in favour of a cloth, draped over the side of the tub. She dipped it in the water, and began scrubbing at her neck.

‘You’ve only ever guided me towards my calling, Sibyl.’

The Calling.

‘I wish I could have helped you become Divine. I owe the Inquisition a lot, it seems.’

‘You put me on this path,’

‘And then left you alone on it,’ Sibyl paused her scrubbing to frown. ‘I ought to have been there.’

Leliana removed her hand from the water, and wiped it on her tunic. She couldn’t begin to count how many times she’d wished Sibyl had been at her side during the years she spent helping in the hunt for Corypheus – but the wishes had been tinged with understanding. She can’t be here, but I wish she could. Perhaps they’d been prayers rather than wishes; either way, they made Leliana smile. She watched Sibyl wipe away the mud and dirt from her neck, cleansing the cuts and bruises.

And a question burned in her throat. Leliana pushed a stray lock of tawny hair behind Sibyl’s ear, and drew her gaze.

‘Songbird,’

One little word put a hundred hundred butterflies in Leliana’s tummy.

‘Did you… find what you were looking for, in the West?’

Sibyl didn’t stop scrubbing, but her gaze dropped to her knees that were making two mountains, protruding from the clear water.

‘In truth? I don’t know. I brought everything I found there back with me, so I suppose time will tell if any of it is useful.’

‘But your Calling…’

‘I can’t hear it yet, Leliana,’ Sibyl said softly, pairing it with a smile equally so. Leliana’s chest hurt again – she’d hoped, wished, that there’d be something in those uncharted lands to help. ‘the Blight simply doesn’t exist in the lands to the West. The people there distrusted me for a long time. They could sense something inside me, something wrong. But when I spoke to them, they said they’d healed withering sicknesses from their own people before. It didn’t quite sound the same as the Blight, but, well, anything’s worth a try.’

‘Were there mages there?’ Leliana asked. The time for stories would come later, she knew, when they weren’t both so weary from their separation and reunion. But the questions prickled like hairs on the back of her neck; she had to know.

Sibyl’s expression, however, had grown dark.

‘Did you know the Blight exists in the Fade, too? There were mages there, and they crossed over the border freely. The Black City, Leliana, it’s not what either of us thought it was…’

A shiver ran down Leliana’s spine that had nothing to do with the dancing shadows, nor the wind howling behind the shutters.

‘Is it tied to the Blight, somehow? If the darkspawn were originally Magisters who breached the Golden City, then…’

‘Ah, see, I had that thought too. Like perhaps if we cleansed that place of its Blight, it’d spread to our world, too?’ Sibyl smiled, then shook her head. ‘But truly, I suppose we’ll never know. It’s not like we can go there.’

The Inquisitor could, Leliana thought to herself.

Sibyl sat up a little, making the bathwater slosh and slip around her chest, leaving a glistening shine over her skin, the curves and lines of her body.

‘But Maker, let’s talk about something a little more cheerful, or else I’m not going to be able to sleep. I’ve done all I can do abroad. I’ll stay by your side, just like I promised. Discreetly, of course.’ Sibyl scrubbed the flecks of dirt and grass off of her forearms with the washcloth, dipping it in the water every now and then before lifting it out and wringing it. Leliana let her eyes drop, let herself watch the water lapping under her breasts, revealing a soft stomach with every ripple and wave. The urge to follow the water’s trail with a touch of her own was too strong, but Leliana held it back. What were a few minutes when compared to the years she’d already waited?

Leliana blinked when Sibyl’s words finally sank in, furrowing her brow when the Warden turned to her.

‘Discreetly, what do you mean?’

A delightful blush crept onto Sibyl’s cheeks, and Leliana rather suspected it had little to do with the warm water.

‘We can’t be lovers in the public eye, surely,’

It was Leliana’s turn to smile. A surge of something powerful, something warm and strong and true coursed through her like adrenaline. She remembered Justinia, she remembered Lothering. She remembered her ascension in the Grand Hall, where all of Val Royeaux had come to see her crowned Divine Victoria.

‘And why not? The world is changing. Mages are free and governing themselves. Elves and Qunari wear Chantry robes! Even the Inquisitor has a male paramour at his side. We will not sneak around. Not us. Not anymore.’

She’d stepped into the light when she became Divine; into the light, out of the shadows.

Sibyl sat up in the bath.

‘You’ve got that look in your eye, what do you mean?’

Leliana brushed the backs of her fingers against Sibyl’s cheek. Her freckles were darker now than they used to be, and the dark patches of soft skin beneath her eyes was more pronounced. But her eyes were the same; mossy and dark. The bow of her lips. The shape of her brows. Leliana tilted her head, and made a hmm sound.

She was waking from the dream, it was spinning into reality. The ground pressed into her knees.

‘Has a Divine ever been married before? Or will I be the first?’

‘Leliana, songbird,’

‘Shh, let’s dream until it becomes real,’

An echo from a decade ago, and half again, came back in a flutter. Leliana saw it in Sibyl’s eyes; all the space that’d been between them reduced to the width of a bathtub, all the time spent apart had finally run down. The candles reflected in Sibyl’s eyes, but for a moment they were campfires with a starry sky above. Sibyl was smiling when Leliana blinked back into the present.

The warrior and the bard, the Warden and the Divine.

Leliana leant forward to kiss Sibyl, and felt a damp hand push into her hair, bringing her closer. Sibyl was warm and open, matching the smile Leliana had for a time before guiding her to a more sensual embrace. Leliana let Sibyl part her lips easily; she always melted into her touch – wherever that touch was.

‘I’m here,’ she whispered against Leliana’s kiss.

Sibyl bit Leliana’s lower lip gently when she pulled away, in a little show of possessiveness that set a ripple of pleasure through Leliana’s gut.

And she couldn’t help herself. She closed her eyes and kissed Sibyl again, she let her hand dip into the water, she heard it slosh and sway.

Sibyl welcomed the fresh embrace, letting Leliana set the pace of their soft kisses, a brush of gentle skin against gentle skin. It was a miracle to taste her again, to feel the way she always asked for a little more. They kissed with only the sound of the wind and the rippling water, until Sibyl pulled away to sigh, breathy against Leliana’s ear. It woke up the soft ache of desire that had slept in her for years on end; a desire for her, for the joys of her skin and warmth of her, but it was a desire for wholeness, too. Leliana felt herself slipping into bliss she’d scarcely dared to dream of, as surely as if she was sinking into the bathwater, too, it was happening, it was real. She’s here.

And she whispered Leliana’s name to her.

‘Tell me about the stars again,’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for sticking with this little fic! i hope you enjoyed it, it was a lot of fun to write about my favourite girls - and i hope you'll leave a comment or come say hi on tumblr if you liked it! anyway gosh, thank you again if you read this, it always means a lot <3
> 
> in other news, i've started writing the coffee au....... and i'm planning to upload chapter 1 on my birthday (june 22nd)... so watch this space!


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